Jan. 13, 2016, 12:14 a.m.

President Obama used his last State of the Union address to push for national voting reforms and went off script to specifically call for bipartisan groups to draw new congressional districts instead of lawmakers.

"I think we’ve got to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters and not the other way around," he said before veering from his prepared remarks to add: "Let a bipartisan group do it."

Redistricting expert Paul Mitchell said Obama's line echoed calls by California Republicans a decade ago when they were pushing for a citizens' redistricting commission to draw boundaries, instead of the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Voters approved that measure, and the commission drew new lines in 2011.

Jan. 13, 2016, 12:01 a.m.

For one last time, President Obama took to the rostrum of the House chamber, observing an old ritual with a new purpose: shaping history.

Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday night was no nostalgia trip, though the president and many around him were mindful of its timing, nearly eight years to the day after an Iowa victory launched his unlikely path to the White House.

It was a chance for reflection and a bit of self-congratulation, not least for helping the nation rebound from its worst economic downturn in more than half a century — though he was careful to credit the American people and acknowledge their continued unease.

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Jan. 12, 2016, 11:45 p.m.

With soft-spoken but undeniably tart words, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley vaulted onto the national stage Tuesday night for the second time in less than a year, going after both President Obama and presidential candidates in her own Republican Party. The question left unanswered: Did she do herself good or harm — or both — in her response to the president’s State of the Union address?

Some Democrats watching Haley’s speech — which followed Obama’s final State of the Union of his presidency — praised her, albeit largely because of her explicit criticism of her party. Republicans seemed split, with some embracing her remarks and others put out that she used the significant platform to tweak her own party and its candidates.

At the very least, if Haley increased her standing in the illusory vice presidential sweepstakes of some candidates, she took herself off front-runner Donald Trump’s short list.

Jan. 12, 2016, 8:51 p.m.

Here’s a shorter version of Obama’s message: Lower your expectations. The president who, when he won his party’s nomination of 2008, said this might be “the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless … the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” – that president is older and wiser now.

After seven years of work, he knows he may have to be satisfied when he leaves office with a sluggish economic recovery, a not fully rooted healthcare law and a foreign policy that still faces a generation’s work of challenges.

Jan. 12, 2016, 7:45 p.m.

The official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address offered the party’s attempt to not only attract a younger, more diverse electorate, but also to redirect the populist anger that is rippling through the country toward more positive pursuits.

Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina is no Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner in the presidential campaign. The Indian American daughter of immigrants broke new ground by suggesting the GOP should take its share of responsibility for Washington's problems, and then try to fix them.

“We need to be honest with each other, and with ourselves, while Democrats in Washington bear much responsibility for the problems facing America today, they do not bear it alone. There is more than enough blame to go around,” Haley said.